• Price: $4.99 USD (currently on sale for $3.99 until May 16th)
• Developer: Apple Cider
• Publisher: Ratalaika Games
• Release Date: April 25, 2023

A review code was kindly provided by Ratalaika Games on behalf of Apple Cider. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

A VN About Making Connections

DoraKone caught my eye with a cute, vibrant banner and a fun premise: your character Dulce has started playing a popular augmented reality game that just came out. Appearing to take inspiration from a certain monster-catching AR phone game, Dragon Connection – “DraCo” for short – allows its players to catch dragons around town and use them to battle as well. The concept checks a lot of boxes for me: visual novel, video game-related, and dragons.

Dulce had to wait until she got a new phone compatible with the app to play it, so she’s behind everyone who has been playing from the start. She first goes to a local ice cream parlor because it has easily accessible Nest and Territory points for DraCo. Naturally, the business isn’t too pleased about the influx of people who are just passing by instead of making purchases…

Thankfully, Dulce is a frequent customer at the ice cream parlor, so the employee isn’t quite as annoyed with her. She meets 3 other young women who are into DraCo at the parlor, and they’re all her potential new love interests and friends. The real dragon’s treasures are the girlfriends you make along the way.

You’ll get to know Rayen, Brin, and Honorée as you play – and replay – the game. Rayen was definitely my favorite out of the 3 love interests because she is adorable and relatable. She becomes anxious in social situations, but tries her best to overcome her anxiety to share her love of raising these virtual dragons.

Brin was my second favorite love interest; her design kind of reminded me of Naruto a little bit with the goggles and the orange part of her outfit. She’s really competitive, and has a rivalry with Honorée. While they may squabble over their territories in DraCo, their disputes never get too catty.

I didn’t like certain aspects of Honorée, whose family is rather wealthy. Her attitude about money and power isn’t the best. That being said, she does have redeeming qualities – I liked her other hobby, which she shares with Dulce, and she often seems to put up a front to hide her real feelings. (Also, her hair is really cute.)

An Honorée-ble Honorable Mention

Although DoraKone is all about the girls and their relationships as they bond over their shared passion, I have to say that I really loved Glen, the ice cream parlor employee. His somewhat grumpy, antisocial nature provided multiple entertaining lines. He was my second favorite character overall behind Rayen.

How To Win A Girl In 10(?) Days

There are 4 endings for each woman (plus a more individual ending for Dulce). You can check out which endings you’ve seen in the Extras section, which also contains the CGs for those endings.

To get each of their 4 endings, you’ll have to balance your responses so that it will lean in a friendly or romantic direction. The happier you make them with your choices, the more likely it is that you’ll get a romantic ending. There are 2 romantic endings and 2 friendly endings for each woman, and the 2 endings in each of those categories are split based on the results of an important event in the story.

Something I really appreciated was that most of the choices you make tend to have obvious consequences. Agree with one dialogue choice to improve your relationship with one woman, and choose the other option to make the other one happy.

If you’re only talking with someone one-on-one, it’s usually pretty easy to figure which option would make them happier. And when you have to decide where to go next to continue the story, they made it easy to continue hanging out with the same character by showing you all 3 women’s locations on a map. I’m used to visual novels with less obvious choices – which are fine, but I loved the ease of use in DoraKone.

Worth Adding To Your Dragon Hoard?

This is a shorter visual novel with some sweet representation for lesbians. Because I liked the characters, I wouldn’t say no to more scenes with them, but I think this works well as a short VN. My main complaint was actually the lack of visual representation for the dragons in DraCo. The only dragon illustrations I recall seeing are A) the text box design and B) a poster in Rayen’s room. I wouldn’t expect more than one or two CGs for them, but the lack of dragons was disappointing.

The art that is there is quite charming though, and I enjoyed the soundtrack as well. The story about an augmented reality game getting people outside and connecting with others was relatable, and still remains fairly relevant. Dulce was, as her name would indicate, quite sweet and kind to the other women. It was nice to have a drama-free plot that often included silly jokes about who would play what role in a fictional world. DoraKone is more than reasonably-priced, and I had a good time with it, so I’d recommend it.